Instructor Agreement

1. The Arrangement

You provide expertise. We provide an audience.

Instructor Partners are subject matter experts who co-lead a Community Topic forum on My Small Business University. No fee is paid in either direction. Instructors are not employees or contractors of MySMBU.

Each Community Topic is led by up to two Instructors. Current topics: Finance & Cash Flow, Marketing & Sales, Legal & Compliance, Operations & Hiring, and Business Technology.

2. Your Responsibilities

To remain in good standing, an Instructor Partner will:

Engagement minimums

• Respond to member questions in your topic within 2 business days
• Post at least 1 substantive original post every 2 weeks
• Participate in 1 live Q&A session per month

Content quality

• Answers must be substantive and actionable — not “it depends, contact me for a consultation”
• Content must be original, or properly attributed if quoting others
• Do not reproduce your own paywalled or client-only material in a way that creates licensing problems

Professional conduct

• Treat members respectfully, including when correcting them
• Disclose conflicts of interest — for example, recommending a product you profit from
• Stay within your competence. Refer out rather than guess
• Do not give individualized legal, tax, financial, or medical advice that requires licensure. All content must be general and educational in nature

Accuracy & compliance

• Keep guidance current with law and regulation changes in your area
• Include any disclaimers your profession’s rules require. Attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors often have advertising and solicitation rules from their licensing bodies — you are responsible for your own compliance

2A. Earning Featured Status

Section 2 is the floor. This section is the upside.

Featured Directory Placement

Every Instructor receives a complimentary basic listing in the Small Business Services Directory. Featured placement — the same premium placement Sponsors pay $97/month for — is earned, not given.

Each month, in each topic, the Instructor who provided the most member-recognized value receives Featured placement for the following month. The other retains their basic listing.

It resets every month. Featured status is never permanent and never permanently lost. A slow month costs you next month’s placement — nothing more.

What this is not

• Not a competition against your co-Instructor. We do not publish head-to-head comparisons between Instructors, and we ask that you don’t frame it that way either. You’re competing against your own last month.
• Not a performance minimum. Failing to earn Featured status has no bearing on your standing. Removal (Section 6) is governed solely by the Section 2 minimums.

3. What You May Not Do

• Hard-sell members in forum posts, direct messages, or replies
• Solicit members off-platform for your services (see Section 5 for what is allowed)
• Post affiliate links for third-party products without disclosure and prior written approval
• Share member information outside the platform
• Disparage other Instructors, Sponsors, or MySMBU
• Use the MySMBU name or logo to imply endorsement of your business beyond your Instructor role

Note: this section governs promoting your own outside services. Promoting MySMBU itself through the affiliate program (Section 5A) is encouraged.

4. Content License

By posting content to MySMBU, you grant MySMBU a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to host, display, reproduce, adapt, and distribute that content on the platform and in MySMBU marketing materials.

This license survives the end of the Instructor relationship.

5. Promotional Rights

This is your compensation. Specifically, you may have:

• A profile page with your bio, credentials, headshot, business name, and a link to your site
• A standard signature block appended to your posts — name, title, firm, one link
• Billing as “Topic Led By [Your Name]” on your Community Topic
• A complimentary basic listing in the Small Business Services Directory, upgradeable to Featured by earning it (Section 2A)
• Mentioning your firm in context when directly relevant and disclosed
• Affiliate commission for referring new subscribers (Section 5A)

What you may not do is in Section 3.

5A. Affiliate Program

All Partners — Instructors and Sponsors — may enroll as affiliates. This is the one place you are actively encouraged to promote MySMBU.

Term	Detail
Commission	10% of each referred subscription payment
Duration	Up to 6 months per referred subscriber
Attribution window	30 days. A signup counts as your referral if it occurs within 30 days of the click on your link
Holding period	Commission is not payable until the subscription has been active for one full month. The same applies to each renewal payment
Payout	$50 minimum balance, paid every 30 days
Cancellation	If a referred subscriber cancels, commission stops immediately — no further payments for that referral, even if the 6-month window hasn’t elapsed
Refund clawback	If a referred subscriber receives a refund, the corresponding commission is reversed
Self-referral	Prohibited. You may not refer yourself, your staff, family members, or entities you control. Violations forfeit all pending commission

Referrals are tracked and paid through MySMBU’s affiliate platform. You’ll receive a unique referral link on approval.

6. Review & Removal

Review cadence: MySMBU reviews Instructor performance monthly against the Section 2 minimums. Performance is tracked per Instructor, not per topic.

If standards aren’t met

1. Notice — written notice describing the gap, with [30 days] to correct it
2. Final warning — if uncorrected
3. Removal — MySMBU may end the arrangement and appoint a replacement Instructor

Immediate removal, without warning

May occur for: harassment, sharing member data, undisclosed conflicts of interest, giving licensed advice without licensure, or conduct that exposes MySMBU to legal risk.

On removal

• Your promotional content, bio, links, and Directory listing are removed
• Your substantive educational content remains published, with your name on it (Section 4)
• Your affiliate account is closed; commission already earned and past the holding period is paid out
• The topic is reassigned

Either party may end the arrangement with [30 days’] written notice. The content license in Section 4 survives.

7. Relationship & Liability

• No exclusivity. You are free to lead topics, teach, or publish on other platforms, including competing ones. MySMBU does not restrict where else you practice or publish.
• You are an independent partner — not an employee, contractor, agent, or partner in the legal sense. No wages, benefits, or employment relationship is created.
• You are responsible for your own taxes, insurance, and professional licensing compliance.
• Content is educational and general. It is not a substitute for individualized professional advice, and no professional-client relationship is formed with members.

8. Confidentiality

You will not disclose member information, member questions posed in private channels, or non-public MySMBU business information.

9. Changes to This Agreement

MySMBU may update this agreement with [30 days’] notice to active Instructors. Continued participation constitutes acceptance.